I am a RUSH fan My Handle comes from the song Cygnus X-1, my birthday is the twelfth so it becomes Cygnus XII. I really dig the Story Telling of RUSH, the Hemispheres Album specifically. Pretty simple huh! I've had that handle for 20 years. Additionally it is dual, because there is also a Black Hole. Also it means Swan, and is a Constellation Cluster. I liked all three things, so I took the Handle.

Long story short, back in the good old days of first getting online, I was signing up to Hotmail at the same time as my then girlfriend. We were both taking Classical Studies and she chose an email handle on the basis of a myth we had just studied in depth. The title of the main divinity in that myth was 'The Dread.' (I won't use the whole thing here because I don't know if she still uses that email.)

At any rate, I decided it would be funny to have a Dread in my email and, being about 17 at the time, thought Dread Gerbil sounded fantastic. It kinda stuck and I've used it since even though I am no longer a fan of Hotmail.

Unfortunately, a lot of people read it as Dr Eadgerbil or Dredger Bill. So I usually have to spell it out carefully when telling it to anyone.

I collected mostly postwar (WWII) German fountain pens for a few decades ( not as much today as prices are at a ridiculus point now) and one day back in the 80's was in a pen/stationary shop in Dallas and heard a snooty clerk pronounce Mont Blanc as "Monbla" the sound of it just struck me. 256 is the model number of one of my favorite models of Mont Blanc pens from the early '50s ( I have 3 that I use most every day) so when I started getting on interest forums I just put the two together